Tell you what though - Les Dawson was often brilliant, and a much underrated writer. Never fashionable, probably - but he's made me laugh a lot more than most of what's around at the moment.

Dawson's Creek would have been much better if he'd been in it too.

"My wife's mother tells people that I'm effeminate. I don't mind. Compared to her, I am.

We only ever fight three times - morning, noon and night.

The ashen-faced mourners huddled closer together as the elements rained down on them, their souls racked in dire torment as they recognised their impending doom, while underneath the spreading folds of a black gloomy tree, a demented dwarf strangled his pet raccoon. All together now...if you're happy and you know it clap your hands...."

"Where would we be without entertainment? Here."

"The wife had such a great left eye, the right eye couldn't stop looking at it."

Yeah, alright, not PC, but I laughed. Sorry.

"We always knew when the wife's mother was coming round. The mice started throwing themselves on their traps..."

"She used to eat us out of house and home. I've never seen a woman eat so fast, she had racing colours on her knives and forks..."

Then there's all the Cissy and Ada routines about elderly women having hysterical rectums... Fantastic...

Was The Dawson Watch ever any good? I don't remember.

>Was The Dawson Watch ever any good? I don't remember.

Yeah it was. High-concept thing with lots of *leggy lovelies* at old-fashioned spinning tape reel computer banks while Les told us the state of the nation. Su-poib.

He may not be dead yet, and personally I hope that day will be a long way off yet, but Daisy Donovan's crass and tasteless and totally pointless (not to mention medically inaccurate) swipe at Dudley Moore's terminal brain disorder takes some betaing for offensiveness. And I'm someone who doesn't get offended easily.

Well don't forget, someone wrote that for her anyway (presumably someone who once sucked Harry "Tin Tin" Thompson's cock at Oxford), as Daisy Donovan is a stupid upper-class bimbo and failed actress: her only previous acting credit, as far as I know, was in a Michael Winner movie. Say no more.

Back to Les. "In 1846, my great great-uncle, Peregrine Cattermole Dawson, found the secret of eternal life in a disused cobbler's in Rhyl. In 1895, the entire forces of the now despised Eurasian despot Wahong Chang Arkwright caused a minor diplomatic affrontage when they invaded a bring and buy sale in Ormskirk. And in 1914, there occurred a nasty outbreak of sporran rash among the 37th Foot and Mouth Highland Regiment.

None of this has anything to do with why we're here tonight, but it just shows how your mind wanders when you're nervous...."

Dudley Moore has a terminal condition? I haven't heard about this. What is the latest about it?

And what was the joke?

He has a progressive brain disorder - not sure what it's called, but I *think* it may an advanced form of the one that Michael J Fox also suffers from. There was a rumour a while back that he can no longer bring himself to play piano, as the inability that his condition causes upsets him too much.

Rich comic material, according to the pitiful morons behind The 11 O'Clock Show.

I don't like using the word 'joke' to describe it, but it basically ran:

LEE: Good news for Billy Connoly, who got a slot on the Parkinson show

DONOVAN: Bad news for Dudley Moore, who got Parkinsons.


Ha bloody ha.

Wish I hadn't asked.

Did it get a laugh. The occassions when I watched that show I noticed a lot of their stuff didn't.

Almost as offensive were the jokes about Cilla Black's husband dying... the most commonly quoted defence of 11 OCS is that the targets are in the public eye and therefore legitimate ones - a ropey enough argument at the best of times, but here we're dealing with someone who spent over three decades trying his hardest to avoid being in the public eye.

Almost as offensive were the jokes about Cilla Black's husband dying... the most commonly quoted defence of 11 OCS is that the targets are in the public eye and therefore legitimate ones - a ropey enough argument at the best of times, but here we're dealing with someone who spent over three decades trying his hardest to avoid being in the public eye.

>Did it get a laugh. The occassions when I watched that show I noticed a lot of their stuff didn't.


It got a laugh, regrettably, with a few muffled expressions of shock and disgust hidden in the audience somewhere. I was sorely tempted to phone C4 and complain, which is not in my character at all.

Maybe if you had that would have had an impact, but then they got a slagging on RTR and now a new series looms.

Why don't they just make a fresh start without IL? None of the others are left, are they? Give the gig to Mark Thomas. Or Kevin Day himself.

The main problem would have been that I would have confronted C4 with a logical and coherent accident, rather than the sort of random stream of logic-free pointlessness that is usually spouted by complainants, and thus my comments would not have been taken seriously.

Why don't they get Clive James to do 11OCS? It's basically just a smuttier version of the stuff he's been doing for years anyway.

Why don't they just cancel it and repeat Brass Eye uncut instead?

>Why don't they just cancel it and repeat Brass Eye uncut instead?

Hear, hear.

Seriously, if I had the money, I'd set up a cable tv network and repeat Barss Eye in full, uncut. That's how strongly I feel about this ridiculous situation.

If it weren't for the fact they'd become undeserved martyrs, it would make you pray for Lee, Donovan and whoever wrote that "joke" to suffer early, painful deaths.

What cunts they all are. They will never realise how much they owe (albeit in a hundredth-rate way) to Beyond The Fringe, groundbreaking, original and (most importantly) funnier than 11ocs would ever be.

I'm sure, in 20 years time, when the '90's become ironic, people will hold the 11'o'clock show up as a 'masterpiece', with a knowing look on thier faces. Whislt Dancing to Steps. And winking. Ironically.

>If it weren't for the fact they'd become undeserved martyrs, it would make you pray for Lee, Donovan and whoever wrote that "joke" to suffer early, painful deaths.
>
>What cunts they all are. They will never realise how much they owe (albeit in a hundredth-rate way) to Beyond The Fringe, groundbreaking, original and (most importantly) funnier than 11ocs would ever be.

Yeah yeah yeah, but Dudley did once joke about having to wank the cancer out of his nob. Why shouldn't he try looking at the funny side of dying horribly one more time? Not that I'm standing up for Daisy Donovan, you understand.

You're deliberately missing the point, and you know you are.

They say you shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but as Victor Lewis-Snide is always reminding us, that's when they can't sue you any more.

Yeah, but notice how quiet VLS has been about Dudley Moore's condition, which would ordinarily be the sort of thing that he considers to be fair game.

Unlike Lee and Donovan, he has some sense of perspective.

>You're deliberately missing the point, and you know you are.

You're wrong and you're a grotesquely ugly freak!

Don't quote Morris at me if you're trying to argue the kind of point that Morris would laugh at.

There's a whole universe of difference between the Derek and Clive illness routines and 11OCS, and you know it.

You're pretty convinced of what I know aren't you?

Derek and Clive were a pair of drunk cunts calling each other cunt and laughing themselves stupid about cancer of the arsehole and saying "coon" and "nigger" purely because they knew it was naughty.

The 11 O'Clock Show was a few desperate writers looking for something, anything that would get a laugh or a snort of calous derision from an audience they were shitting themselves in front of.

Now, where in the name of Mark E. Mark and the Funky Bunch did I suggest that these two things were the same or were even worthy of comparison in any way? The relationship I am identifying here is between three things:

(a) 11 O'Clock Show
(b) Dudley Moore Illness
(c) Derek and Clive

(a) and (b) are related by Daisy's little joke. (b) and (c) are related by Derek's jokes about terminal illnesses. (a) and (c) have bugger all to do with each other. Are you following this alright? Or do you need a diagram?

If you think Dudley Moore needs defending from jokes about his rotting brain, when he has never been particularly unforthcoming with his own unique sideways look at cancer, then, to quote Derek himself, "CUNT!"

In any case, Dudley has himself been a living breathing joke ever since his encounter with Hollywood and that occasion when he really did beat up his wife instead of just giggling about it. (But just to make it really simple for you, I will make clear that I am not suggesting that this detracts in any way from the excellent manner in which he hopped about and mugged furiously in the "One Leg Too Few" sketch.)

Think we're just pointing out that Dudley Moore is (mostly) great, and that 11ocs is a desperate flailing around for material resulting in needlessly tasteless and useless (and unfunny) material. That's all.

No need to get on your high horse, Pete O.

btw It must have been a pain in the arse to keep typing in that long name all the time. Come to that, it must still be.

Here's a big difference then: Derek and Clive doesn't take aim at any particular 'targets', other than a smattering of film stars and former Prime Ministers. Meanwhile, 11OCS is pretty damn close to pointing at someone in a wheelchair and shouting 'spaz'. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this forms the basis of one of Iain Lee's hilarious gags in the next series.

Justin - I have no high horse to get on, what with my own self-proclaimed love of the words "cunt", "coon" and the phrase "cancer of the arsehole" (of course, only when used in an ironic way, you understand, etc.)

TJ - Big hairy balls. Cancer of the arsehole really exists and I cannot honestly say whether or not I'm disgusted with myself for finding it amusing. Laughing at horrible things is a release for some and offensive for others, so some people can join in and others can't - Derek and Clive was as wrapped up in that muddle just as much as the 11 O'Clock show is today, but the difference is that Derek and Clive was sometimes funny.

PS. the triffic "autocomplete" feature in IE5 types my name for me.

Let's put this in some kind of context: If TV's hilarious Iain Lee were to contract, say, cancer, and some "topical" show haplessly attempted to joke about it - would there even be a single gasp of shock in the studio? Or would the audience just grin silently to themselves in warm satisfaction?

Precisely.

I'm sorry, I've lost the thread of this. Justin &co. were saying it's wrong to make light of people's illnesses, and O'H is arguing... what, exactly?

He's arguing for the sake of it.

Is that the five minute argument or the full half-hour?

Sorry! (hits self on head with tray) Ow! Sorry! Ow!

I am actually going to have to provide diagrams, aren't I?

What, of Dudley Moore's brain disease?

Even you have to admit *that* would be bad taste.

And you join us now for the 3.30 slow death race. And their off, and look at Cook go, he's drinking steadily already and almost throwing the pills down his throat. But Moore is now making up for lost time, he's decided to inject scotch straight up his arsehole and it seems to be having an effect, he's got no sense of humour, and he's slapped a woman, oh but what's this, Cook has very suddenly turned bright red and got very fat, Moore is in trouble now, he's gone to Hollywood for a few years, I really can't see how he's going to make up the distance now because Cook is surely only a year or so away from croaking, and yes, he's done it, the chinese-type wife is digging a hole for him already and Dudley has barely begun trembling, and it's back to the studio.

That's probably the most fitting epitaph for Peter Cook that I've ever read. It's certainly more appropriate than most of the contributions to that "Something Something Fire" book that was rushed out after his death.

The book edited by the nice lady control freak he married just before croaking is quite good for the odd anecdote but on the whole, it's basically a long list of people taking it on themselves to publicly appologise on Cook's behalf for him not writing a classic sitcom during the seventies or becoming a film star like Dudley, and just "wasting his talent" etc. etc. like a bunch of parents and scoutmasters.

I think on his gravestone it should say:

"Straight through the diaphragm she was wearing'... right... up 'er cunt."

I do believe that the "Cancer" jokes in Derek and Clive came fairly sharpish after Dudley's father died of, er, intestinal cancer.

Don't come to me looking for a defence of 11ocs material; I certainly wouldn't have had a hand in that one.

Tell us one that you DID have a hand in.

IAIN: My mother-in-law's got no nose...

DAISEY: Cancer?